Month: June 2015

I’m always on the lookout for quick, convenient eats that are still healthy. When I was sent a nice little care package of Purefoods Sexy Chix, I got all excited.

Purefoods Sexy Chix are made with Magnolia chicken breast chunks and packed in “guiltless” broth.

If you want more excitement for your palate there are also adobo, arrabiata, and Hainanese variants. The arrabiata uses shredded chicken instead of chicken chunks.

You can eat it straight out of the can, or you can dress it up with some of the suggested recipes on this website – My Great Food.

I consider myself a good cook who can whip things up from anything I can find in the kitchen. So I make sure I keep my kitchen well-stocked; Sexy Chix is a staple in my cupboard because I can add chicken chunks to anything I’m making for extra healthy protein.

Want to try Purefoods Sexy Chix out? Three lucky readers can win their own goodie package!

For nearly 8 years, I’ve been practicing yoga asanas (or postures) as part of a general fitness regimen, and I credit the strength and flexibility I gain from yoga for how I’ve remained generally injury-free even through heavy training.

Last Sunday was International Yoga Day, and many yoga studios celebrated it with events and promos. Certified Calm, the country’s first and leading lifestyle store for yoga apparel and accessories, held “There’s Something About Yoga” at their Two Parkade Bonifacio Global City store.

What keeps people coming back to the Milo Marathon? Aside from the fact that it’s an institution in the running community, Milo still is the most prestigious marathon in the country, whose top Filipino winners are crowned the Milo Marathon King and Queen.

Four years ago, I came to Camarines Sur as a last-minute substitute runner for a relay. As I went through the run course I saw the suffering on the individual competitors’ faces. It definitely gave me perspective on how prepared I would have to be to attempt my first half-ironman. I would do just that two years later, but it was in Camsur I started to dream. “What if? Why not?”

Camsur is where it all began for the boom of Philippine triathlon and for a number of us, we signed up for Challenge Camsur due to the nostalgia factor. But every race brings something new. For me, Challenge Camsur was the hottest, spiciest race I’ve ever done.

Social news network Rappler.com invited me to be a guest yesterday on a Google Hangout to take up the topic of physical and financial fitness.

The show was hosted by Sam Oh and the guests were:

Charleston Chua, co-owner of Bikram Yoga Manila;

Kit Guerra, a Crossfit coach and player for the Philippine Volcanoes;

Rocio Pantaleon, a triathlete and Sun Life Financial advisor;

Joaquin Valdes, a filmmaker and fitness enthusiast; and

yours truly, Noelle De Guzman, founder of KikayRunner.com.

It was an hour of discussing the topic “Health or Wealth: What should come first?” While our fitness interests were diverse, we all had a passion for being fit and healthy. Did we bring our savvy for physical fitness into the financial realm as well? We found there were many things physical fitness and financial fitness had in common.

My contribution to the table was that we have to plan to be fit: we take the time to exercise so that we can live longer and better. The same goes for a healthy attitude towards wealth: being financially fit means having enough for what you want to do now and planning and investing so that you have enough for the life you want to live in the future.

I had so much fun meeting my fellow panelists and hearing about their personal approaches to health and wealth! Watch the whole Google Hangout session on Youtube below. You can also follow the Twitter conversation on the Rappler Storify page.

The SEA Games are on in Singapore this week, and of course the Philippines has sent in our own bets across the various sports to be contested. (Here’s a list of the sports we have athletes in.)

While this week is the pointy end for professional tennis at the French Open and Game 1 plays out on Friday for the NBA Finals, don’t miss out on the action in our backyard.

You can check out the SEA Games coverage on local free-to-air television by tuning in to AksyonTV, or browsing to Sports5.ph. Unfortunately, live airing is limited to basketball, volleyball, and football.

A better option would be to head to Youtube channel Sport Singapore which offers live coverage of the SEA Games. I see a listing for Day 1 Swimming Heats, so fingers crossed for more coverage in the following sports:

Over my years in endurance sport I’ve had the privilege to encounter many of the athletes competing: Jessie Lacuna in swimming, who has also tested the waters of age-group triathlon; Rafael Poliquit and Eduardo “Vertek” Buenavista in the men’s marathon; Mary Joy Tabal in the women’s marathon and Mary Grace de los Santos in the women’s 10,000m; Mark Galedo of the national cycling team (featured in this blog post; and Nikko Huelgas, Jonard Saim, Kim Mangrobang, and Claire Adorna of the national triathlon team.

They work hard to be at the top of their respective sports here in the Philippines and I’m glad they’ve been put forward to represent the country. All the hard months of planning, training, and sacrifice come to a head this week. I hope they make us proud by doing their best and showing good sportsmanship over the course of the competition.